CHAPTER XV 



AUTUMN PERENNIALS UNDER GLASS 



IT is easy enough to have plenty of bright flowers under glass 

 in late autumn where an average temperature of 50 to 

 60 Fahr. can be maintained, but when there is no heating 

 apparatus or merely a portable one, plants must be chosen 

 warily. Chrysanthemums, no doubt, are the mainstay of all 

 gardeners for conservatory decoration at this season, and are 

 as available, being hardy perennials, for unheated as for heated 

 houses, though the flowers have a tendency to damp off in 

 chill, foggy weather. No one would wish to be without such 

 old but fine stand-by varieties as Mme. Desgranges and its 

 bright-coloured sports, Source d'Or, Mile. Lacroix, Bouquet 

 Fait, Cullingfordii, and others, not forgetting some of the 

 delightful single forms, grown naturally as free-flowering 

 bushes. For our special purpose, early, and mid-season 

 varieties are more to be recommended than late ones. It is 

 true that nothing else can quite take the place of chrysan- 

 themums in greenhouse decoration. They are so universally 

 grown, however, and it is so easy to get information on all 

 points with regard to them, that it will be more profitable to 

 inquire what other flowering plants are attainable from 

 Michaelmas to the end of the year. 



Naturally, we think first of the few late-blooming perennials 

 which, though quite hardy, are likely out of doors to have 

 their flowers either crippled or wholly destroyed by early 

 frosts. One such, often grown in pots on this account for 



